Cosmology

It seems we live in a bizarre Universe. The past decade has seen a revolution in observational cosmology, painting a picture of a Universe consisting of roughly 4 per cent ordinary matter, 22 per cent "cold dark matter" and 74 per cent even more mysterious "dark energy". The concept of dark energy is a variant on Einstein's cosmological constant, Lambda. This Lambda + Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) paradigm and its extensions pose fundamental questions about the origins of the Universe. If dark matter and dark energy truly exist we must understand their nature; alternatively, Einstein's General Relativity may need radical modifications. The Universe appears to have begun with a period of rapid inflation and eventually cooled into a dark world in which the first objects formed and reionized the Universe. Along with dark matter and dark energy, these mysterious epochs in the history of the Universe pose great puzzles to be solved.

The UCL Cosmology Group has a wide range of interests, spanning from the basic properties and evolution of the large scale structure in the Universe all the way back to the initial fluctuations that seeded this structure. We use observational and theoretical tools as well as numerical simulations to tackle fundamental questions posed by the current cosmological model. More details about our research and projects we are involved in can be found in the links provided below.